browser life

I rarely get this mad anymore, but if I don't vent I may just explode!

When I could still work, I had long-term disability insurance coverage through my employer. This is a private policy that is supposed to pay a portion of your previous income should you become permanently disabled (they require you to be approved for SSDI as proof, which I was). Sounds like a good thing, right? It should be, but in my case, it was an enormous waste of money and spoons.

Not all of these companies are on the up and up. My particular company has been investigated many times for pressuring their employees to deny claims they know to be valid. This keeps their rates down, which makes them more attractive to employers.

I applied for benefits in 2005, and I was harassed repeatedly by this company while my claim was being processed. They had my poor rheumatologist fill out the same forms over and over to prove I was really disabled. They would call just to make sure I was really at home and not out doing something an able-bodied person could do; I think they even watched my house.

Then in early 2006, they tell me I must undergo "independent" medical exams, which are physical and mental tests provided by "experts" of their own choosing that they pay under the table. I engaged the services of a lawyer in an attempt to be evaluated by someone who knew neither me nor the insurance company, but I was told my claim would be denied if I did not go to THEIR "experts". Well, you can guess what happened: both the "shrink" who did the neuropsyche exam and the trainee who did the functional capacity exam (a physical endurance test) said I was faking. This was despite two highly regarded rheumatologists, one a nationally known expert on Sjogren's, who testified that I was disabled.

I had the misfortune to have to move to South Dakota at the end of 2006. I went to a rheumatologist there who knew next to nothing about Sjogren's syndrome or fibromyalgia and said in his notes that neither is ever disabling. The insurance seized upon this single visit as the "proof" they needed that I had no physical illness at all. They discontinued benefits three years ago, stating that I was mentally ill, which they don't cover.

I attempted to file suit. The lawyer was at first was enthusiastic about the case. He was familiar with the practitioners the insurance company employed to do their bogus "independent" exams and thought we could either get my benefits reinstated or come to some kind of settlement.

But time passed, and each time I talked to the lawyer, he was less and less confident about my case. Apparently, some very similar cases had been denied. He mentioned a 2008 ruling discrediting independent medical exams as basis for termination of benefits if the experts performing the exams are paid for by the insurance company, but he FAILED to tell me that it wouldn't apply to my case because it pre-dated the ruling.

The lawyer, though, kept saying he would file my case, and I would check in to see if it had been done yet. Then he stopped returning my calls. Knowing that the statute of limitations for filing suit was rapidly approaching, I started calling daily and leaving messages.

I finally reached him today. He said that he had been waiting since April for me to submit a $350 filing fee, which he had NEVER mentioned to me and is not in any of the paperwork I have from him. And he said not to waste my time with this case anymore because it was certain to lose.

THREE YEARS is wayyyyy too long to sustain false hope! I am so angry I would cry if I could produce enough tears. If I had been able to stay in Colorado with my good doctors, I would have had a chance at seeing this thing through. It doesn't even matter that the Mayo Clinic re-confirmed my diagnosis of Sjogren's in late 2007, because it came after the a-hole doc in Sioux Falls said I wasn't disabled. All it takes is one measly naysayer to ruin your financial future.

It's not just infuriating that the insurance company can legally get away with doing this to me, it's that they can do it to ANYONE who does not have an immediately life-threatening condition. If you have fibromyalgia, then you can pretty much count on not getting ongoing benefits from a long-term disability insurance company, because they can deny you based upon your "subjective" symptoms and purported mental impairments. Why is it that Social Security, who is notorious for their denial of claims, approved my disability while a private company would not?

And the lawyer should never have taken my case. I could have done my crying three years ago and figured out some way to survive financially by now instead of clinging to the hope that I would be able to make up for the Mayo Clinic debts and all the stuff my measly medical insurance won't cover. My husband comes home from work in about half an hour, and I'm going to have to tell him that he'll have to do everything he can to keep his job because if he doesn't, we'll lose the house.

I feel like these LTD companies prey upon the disabled, and nobody seems to care. I'm pretty tough emotionally, but it does add serious insult to injury to be told that you're faking and that there's nothing you can get them to do to change their ruling (I did the appeals and they were worthless). The finally broke me. I feel about as significant as an amoeba. I hope these charlatans get what's coming to them, if not in this life, the next.